On The Drift
by Fortitudine
Summary: There are only two things Jess says he's afraid of; being left afoot, and a decent woman.  Every cowboy fears being left afoot, but what episode in his troubled past made him so wary of the gentler sex?


On the Drift

_But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes_. ~ (William Shakespeare)

Each night before we go to bed, Chris and I look in on our children. Gazing at my son's sweet young face, I sometimes wonder where an older, wilder boy might be sleeping this night under a desolate Western sky. An ache steals into my heart when I remember the unkind cut I gave him, and I whisper a prayer for Jess Harper.

Massachusetts that year of 1868 suffered a particularly cold, wet winter, and I picked up a bad cough that lingered. There was no reason for me to feel so unwell—oh, I had my hands full with Chris, the babies and running the house, but I have always enjoyed good health. Yet in the weeks after Christmas as my appetite left me and I felt more and more listless, our family physician looked solemn and went into consultation with my husband.

Perhaps I was particularly affected because I have always felt things too much, joy and sorrow but most particularly joy. "You're too happy," Chris would tell me. "Try not to be quite so happy, Diana - perhaps you could learn to love us a little less intensely!" Which was of course impossible. Chris and our children are the very breath in my body.

After supper that night I was watching them play on the floor with their father, when Chris asked suddenly "Would you like to go out West, Diana? It would be good for you to go someplace dry and clear, up in the mountains. I want to see the roses in your cheeks again."

From his seat by the fire, Colonel Blair, my father-in-law, tugged his moustache and looked thoughtful. "I have heard that New Mexico, in the spring, enjoys a pleasant climate and healthful air. I will be going to Santa Fe on business for three months and—"

I looked from my husband to his parent. "And when were you two conspirators going to tell me about this?"

Chris laughed, and pulled me down beside him. "I don't know if I can live without you for three months, dearest, but I suppose I will have to try. Just don't go out there and fall in love with some cowboy!"

"It would serve you right if I did," I teased him back. "I've always dreamed of meeting a real Western man—"

"Yes, ever since my sister used to slip you those trashy novels when you were in school together. What was the name of that one Miss Murgatroyd caught you with? Something with a title like _The Revenge of the Paiutes_?"

"I think it was the Pawnees, not the Paiutes." I settled back into his arms. "Oh, Chris, as nice as it sounds, I don't want to go. Three months without you and the babies!"

But I went.

After our train crossed the Mississippi, I began watching for what I thought would be a typical Western man. I saw crude, loud men a-plenty, dirty men, big and small men with Western accents and Western gear, but never the one I was looking for. The train reached the high desert and we rode for days across stretches of land as flat and featureless as a New England farm pond. Everything looked different, unfamiliar; the horizon seemed to go on forever. Even the sun was strange, a fierce and angry ball that shot up into the sky in the morning and disappeared just as quickly at night. Darkness fell suddenly in this part of the world, a deep, impenetrable blackness that hinted at the wildness beyond.

And the wind—it never ceased, hard and clean and elemental.

"This is it!" I thought. "This is where life is real and terrible." And I wondered when I would meet the strong and daring men who matched the country.

From Santa Fe we were driven over twelve miles of bad roads to the ranch where we were to be paying guests, and I was glad to find that while it was clean, and comfortable, and the people were kind, everything still appeared rugged and Western to me. There were lots of sharp-horned cows and little tough-looking horses in the pastures, and lean, browned men with rough clothes and soft drawling voices, and keen eyes that seemed to always be looking beyond the hills.

I was terribly homesick and missed my family, but I put myself in Mrs. Matthews' capable hands and allowed her to pamper me. The Colonel had his own affairs to attend to, so I did needlework on the _patio_ or went out in a little cart we would call a shay in Massachusetts, but they called a buggy, with one of the Matthews' boys to drive me and then, when they saw that I was able, by myself.

It must have been the air, but my appetite improved and I began sleeping through the nights. The Colonel was happy to see me getting better. He joked with me each evening after dinner. "Have you found your Western type yet, Diana?"

"Oh, I've seen hundreds by now," I replied. "And yet—none of them have been quite what I was looking for."

Perhaps this unfulfilled expectation was why Jess Harper made such an impression on me, when we met.

I was not far from the ranch house one morning, at the far end of a small valley near a trickling spring and a stand of cottonwoods, and in my ignorance I decided to unhitch the pony and allow him to crop grass while I did some sketching. The pony had other ideas, and I raised my eyes from my work to see him disappearing in the distance.

I considered the situation without panic. Mrs. Matthews expected me back for lunch. When I did not arrive, someone would come searching for me. In fact, if the pony showed up at the barn without me – which was very likely to be the case - someone would come even sooner. I had a jug of water with me, it was a lovely, sunny day, and I wasn't hungry. I could wait.

The chink of a hoof against stone alerted me to the fact that I was no longer alone. I turned and saw a cowboy, slouching in the saddle with one leg draped over the pommel, watching me from about thirty yards away. He'd ridden up so quietly I hadn't heard a sound.

"You look like you're missin' a pony, ma'am," he drawled, unhooking his ankle from the saddle horn and lifting his hat with easy courtesy.

I smiled ruefully. "I am always underestimating him, I'm afraid. Would you mind catching him up for me? That way I can drive back to the ranch and pretend nothing happened."

With a touch of his spur, he whirled the horse and cantered after my errant pony. It was pure joy to watch, man and animal moving at a smooth, rapid gait across the valley. He was back with the runaway in a few minutes, and jumped down to back him into the traces to be harnessed.

"Thank you. Please don't tell Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, I've only recently reached the point where they're willing to let me drive out alone."

"You're the lady that's come out from the East for a spell. Well, you can't help bein' a greenhorn." He thumbed his hat back and grinned at me. "If'n you want, ma'am, I could ride with you. In case the pony gets any more notions to misbehave."

I thanked him and retrieved my sketchbook. He helped me into the buggy and tied his horse to the back, and we started down the valley, with him holding the pony to a sedate walk.

"Are you one of the hands here? Oh, what a silly question, of course you are." I shook my head at my own foolishness.

"Yes, ma'am, been workin' here a few weeks, now. The Matthews', they're good people."

He was in his early twenties, I guessed, perhaps a year or two younger than I. His hair was black and curling and his blue eyes were set in a thin, boyish face. And he was impossibly picturesque, with a well-knit frame adorned in range clothing that included a set of the fringed leather overalls they called _chaparajos_ and a single pistol in a holster, low on one hip. His horse, his rope, his saddle and rifle—everything combined to make him a vision straight from one of those terrible books I loved as a girl.

"They've been very kind to me. Are you from Santa Fe?"

"No ma'am. I rode up from the Cabeza Prietas last month. I reckon I'm too fond of the big open to stay long in one place." He saw my curious look and explained.

On the drift, he called it, and he'd been at it for a while. Blown like a feather from place to place, with no ties, little money, and few friends.

"What do you do on the…the drift?" I asked.

He gave me a considering look before answering.

"Get in trouble, mostly. I was four years in the cavalry, back durin' the war, and I 'spect it's made me fiddle-footed. Today I'm punchin' cows for Tom Matthews. Tomorrow, who knows?"

"It must be a hard life?"

"I reckon. Sleepin' rough, all day in the saddle, bad weather—an' did you ever eat beans with salt pork?"

"I've tried it once." I grimaced. "Do you have it often?"

"Seems like that's all there ever is, on the trail. Sometimes I think of the things my mother used t' cook. She could make a meal fit for a king out of nothin'. But I hear Eastern women don't go in much for cookin'."

"That's not true. Even my friends who don't cook know enough about it to supervise their servants."

"You can cook?"

"My grandmother taught me," I said proudly. "She raised me and she was very old-fashioned. I don't do any cooking now, but I could if I had to."

He smiled at my boasting. "How about flowers?" he asked. "D'you like flowers?"

"I'm famous for my green thumb," I told him. "I have the most wonderful conservatory you ever saw. People stop on their way past our house to look at it, there in the city."

"What city?"

"Amherst, in Massachusetts."

"My mother loved flowers. She had a rosebush—" he broke off suddenly. "I'd almost forgot what they looked like, them roses."

"Why have you been wandering so long?" I asked. I knew it was not acceptable behavior, in the West, to ask questions, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Bad luck and bad timin'. An' mebbe a little bit of bad temper, too. I can't go back to Texas—that's where I'm from, ma'am—'cos there's paper on me." He glanced slyly at me.

"Paper on you?" I was puzzled.

"A poster with my name an' a reward on it. I'm wanted, ma'am. If'n I was to go back, an' the law catches me, they'll lock me up and most likely throw away the key." He leaned towards me, narrowing his eyes slightly and tightening the corners of his mouth. In that second and that simply, he transformed himself from a pleasant-looking young man into a grim-faced stranger.

"You're trying to frighten me," I said stoutly. "Shame on you! If you truly were a bad person then Mrs. Matthews wouldn't have you on the place."

He laughed. "You're pretty smart, ma'am! I'm sorry—I _was_ trying to see if I could throw a scare into you. But it's the truth." His face grew somber. "I got me into some damn fool trouble, an' had to light a shuck for the border. Since then I've done just about anythin' I could turn my hand to. Broke mustangs, been a drover, been – well, been a few other things, too. But it's a mite lonesome, bein' on the drift."

We drove on in silence.

"You see, I couldn't ask no one t' share my hard times," he resumed after a while. "I always figured that when I finally found a woman, it wouldn't be so she could work her fingers to the bone for me."

There was another silence that lasted until we reached the ranch house. He lifted me down from the seat.

"I reckon its bad manners, me not introducin' myself, but after we got to talkin' I plumb forgot," he said, looking down at me. "I'm Jess Harper."

"My name is Diana Blair, but I think you knew that already." I offered him my hand. "Thanks again for your kindness."

He accepted it with an admiring look in his eyes. "I hope I'll be seein' you again, ma'am."

I smiled at him cheerfully. "Oh, I'm sure you will! We're staying for several weeks."

He bowed to me, gracefully, and led the pony away, leaving me wondering if I had finally found my elusive ideal.

That evening my father in law told me that he was obliged to go to Albuquerque for some weeks. The idea of departing for another city did not appeal to me. I was very well off where I was, and we decided that he could leave me at the Matthews' with confidence.

I was feeling strong enough to take longer drives; and now that I had learned to cope with the pony's whims, I went further afield, finding trails up into lonely canyons, wild and beautiful, where clear, cold streams had carved their way through solid rock walls—places such as I had never dreamed of. Coming back from these excursions, I often ran into Jess Harper. He usually rode a sturdy bay with a star on its forehead, and he sat the animal with that air of careless unison which I had come to appreciate as the mark of a Western man.

"I hope you don't mind havin' me ride with you," he would say, ranging his horse alongside the buggy. Somehow I never could bring myself to object. Seeing him added a small touch of color to my days and took my mind off my homesickness.

His voice did not match his face; it was deep and rough-edged, the voice of a grown man who had seen too much. This was another lesson in the ways of the West for me, that someone so young could already have lived through an entire lifetime of hardship and danger. I liked his voice, and I am a good listener, so I encouraged him to talk, and thrilled to his stories of towns like Sedalia and San Antonio and Dodge City, and of the men he'd known there. Dangerous men in dangerous places, engaged in deeds that to my eager ears seemed steeped in Western adventure and romance.

"You can't know how strange it seems to be here with you," he told me once, rather shyly. "I ain't spoke to a lady—I mean a real lady—for a long time."

"Mrs. Matthews is a lady," I objected.

"Not the kind you are."

We were passing an adobe house, picturesque and pretty, and my escort, seeing my interest, pulled up for a moment.

"I'd like to have me a house like that," he observed. "But they ain't got no garden. A house just ain't a house without a garden. Do you know what I think is the prettiest thing in the world? A little kid in a rose-garden! They's scarce out here – it's hard for them to make it, somehow. I ain't been around a baby for mebbe two, three years."

I thought of the pitiful row of little headstones I'd seen on the hillside in back of the Matthews' and shivered. "Oh, how awful. I couldn't live without babies."

"You like babies, do you? Do you like boy babies?"

"Not as much as I like girls," I replied, defending my sex.

"I like boys a damn sight better," he said firmly. "My mother liked both, I reckon. There was five of us."

"Why do you swear?" I asked. "All the men here are so careful not to swear around me, except you. Is that how you talk on the drift?"

I could see the flush start to rise under his tan. "I'll cure myself of it, if you want me to." And he turned that clear blue gaze on me.

This was getting a little more personal than I cared for, and I raised my parasol to hide my face. It was a delicate, silly trifle, all creamy muslin ruffles. He leaned over in the saddle and touched it gently with one finger.

"You have awful pretty things," he said. "I never met a woman with things like yours. Now that dress, it's like—I don't know what it's like. Lilacs, I s'pose."

It was a simple morning frock of pale violet serge with a white ribbon at the throat. Chris always liked me in clear, soft colors and clean lines.

"We women have the advantage," I told him. "I would hate to be a man and have to wear such dull clothing. I like nice clothes; it's my besetting sin."

"Do you like lace?"

"Of course! What woman doesn't?"

"I don't think many women out here have ever seen it. Real lace, I mean. Someone gave a little bit of it to my mother, once, back in Texas. She kep' it wrapped in an old piece of sheet in her bureau, but sometimes she'd take it out an' let us look at it."

I imagined his mother and her children clustered around that single precious morsel of lace, and thought somewhat ashamedly of my trunk full of frilly lingerie back at the ranch house. I wondered if he would permit me to give him something for her. "Does she still have it?"

"She's dead." His eyes darkened with the memory. "They're all dead, every one of 'em but me. We was burned out, just before the war. One of my sisters got away an' I heard she made it to Galveston, but I ain't never been able to find her."

I was too stunned to speak; he could not have been much more than fifteen at the time. How long he had been on his own!

"I want my wife—when I marry—to have things like yours. I aim to give them to her, too," he said quietly.

"I hope so," Unshed tears stung my eyes. "I hope you will, and that she'll be very happy."

Neither of us spoke again for the rest of the ride.

There was a dance at a neighboring ranch that weekend, and it was made clear to me that it was of the utmost importance that I attend. American ladies were in demand, for there were not very many of us in Santa Fe, or even in the rest of the territory for that matter. Every available female was expected to do her best for the occasion; and I have never been at all averse to dancing, or to dressing up. I was starting to fill out a bit, and my color was better, and I had brought some things with me from a very good dressmaker. I chose a garnet necklace which Chris had given me and wore it with a gown of watered taffeta the same dark wine hue as my necklace. Mrs. Matthew's maid, Consuela, came in with a bouquet of wild roses as I was dressing.

"They are from _señor_ Harper," Consuela told me, confidentially.

I am used to having flowers given me. At home I would have found it very strange, if my husband or one of his friends had not sent me some when I was going to a dance, and I tucked several of the delicate little blooms into my belt and a few of them into my _chignon_.

I informed my hostess that, regrettably, I was only well enough for three dances, and would have to sit out the rest. The first I of course danced with my host, and the second with Mr. Matthews. Before I could accept another partner, Jess Harper appeared at my elbow and claimed me.

He danced well, whirling me breathlessly around the floor until the music ended. The evening had been more tiring that I expected. I wandered out onto the porch and sat down, Harper next to me, and I let him do the talking. I was thinking about my children, and I could see them in my mind's eye, tucked into bed at this hour. I wondered if Chris was reading to them, and I wished I was with him. Suddenly I realized that my companion was no longer speaking, and I turned to him. He was looking at the roses—his roses—that I wore in my hair.

"What were you saying?" I asked, apologetically. "I beg your pardon—I was a thousand miles away."

"I was sayin' how I used to dream of sittin' on the steps of a place like this, and not havin' to leave it when the fandango was over." He laughed and watched me as I lay back, somewhat wearily, in my chair.

"Of course, I'd want to have me a bigger garden," he said. "For the roses. An' a baby! I've got to have a little boy, to go with the roses." He laughed again, a little sadly this time.

"Funny, ain't it?" He asked. "Talkin' about a son, an' I don't even have me a wife."

"Have I shown you pictures of my babies?" I asked lightly, to divert him. "You'd like my boy, I know. And my little girl is a perfect darling."

He did not reply. I looked up after a moment. He was scrutinizing me as if he had never seen me before.

"I didn't know you was married," he said finally.

"Didn't you? That's right-you always call me 'ma'am' instead of my name. If I had noticed your mistake, I would have told you. Yes, I'm married. I came out here because I was so ill this winter, and I needed to get strong for the children."

"You got a boy an' a girl?"

"Yes."

"How old's the boy?"

"Five."

"An' the girl?"

"Almost three. I want to be home for her birthday; I'm so impatient to see them again!"

"You must've been real young, when you married."

"I was just eighteen." I found myself blushing. "It was during the war."

"Your husband was a soldier?"

"21st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry," I said, remembering my schoolmate's brother, the handsome, long-legged young man, home on leave in his blue uniform and lieutenant's shoulder straps, who swept me off my feet and married me ten weeks later.

"An' he's still livin'? I mean, you ain't a widow or nothin'?"

"Oh, yes—he came through it all without a scratch. I'm a very lucky woman, Mr. Harper. I just wish I were well again."

"You're lookin' a heap better than when you come here," he told me, gravely. "I reckon you're goin' to be all right."

We watched the moon beginning to come up, deep and red beyond the mountains.

"I was hopin'," he said abruptly, "that you'd take a notion to stay—"

"Here in Santa Fe?"

"—an' I was tryin' to get up the nerve an' tell you somethin' that would make you want to."

"Mr. Harper! Please don't—" I caught my breath in dismay.

"Why can't I?" He spoke harshly, almost angrily. "Don't I have the right to care for someone? I never met no other woman like you. How sweet you are!"

"Sweet? No—I'm very unkind, and very stupid." I felt as miserable and guilty as if I had been deliberately tormenting some trapped wild creature.

"Not a bit, you ain't. Say—is your husband good to you?"

"He is the best man that ever lived."

An awful silence followed which he finally broke.

"I'm such a stubborn cuss. When I get an idea into my head, it just sticks there. I don't know what I'm goin' to do now," he murmured, to himself more than to me.

"Do? Why—save up to buy your ranch. Build a house, like the one we saw. And your garden—"

He shook his head.

"I don't guess I'll get that house," he said. "An' I can't make a garden by myself. I wouldn't know how."

"Hire someone to help you." I was trembling. The quiet anguish in his voice frightened me.

"I guess I'll just have t' keep on dreamin' of that boy playin' in the roses."

"Oh, no," I said. "It will come true some day! I know it will."

He rose and stood over me, his body whipcord-tense, his hands tightened into fists.

"You don't know nothin' about it," he said fiercely. "You can't know what it's been like for me to talk with you. You started me to thinkin' on a home, kids, everythin'. You're so pretty, an' so gentle. You've got a way of catchin' hold of a man's heart. The first time I laid eyes on you I thought I was dreamin'!"

I put my hands over my face but he kept talking.

"I told you what my life is like, and you understood. You saw how cold and empty it's been, an' the long nights, an' the times when I thought I would die of loneliness. I knew you understood — I saw it in your eyes. An' I said to myself: 'Here is the only woman in the world for me. Whatever I have will be hers, an' I'll spend the rest of my life workin' for her. She'll teach me all the things I've missed learnin'. She'll read to me out of books and she won't care how ignorant an' unschooled I am. And there'll be the boy -'"

He stopped himself. And then he caught up my hand and pressed it to his lips, and walked unsteadily out into the night.

The next morning the Colonel returned from his trip and I flew into his arms and wept.

"I want my children," I explained, seeing the dismayed look on his face. "Don't mind me crying. I must get home, that's all. I must see Chris and the babies."

He made the arrangements and we left a day later. When the buggy came to the door, Jess Harper was driving.

"I'm here to take you all to town," he said. The Colonel looked puzzled, but lifted me into the seat next to him and climbed into the back. Harper flicked the whip and we started.

"You remember," he said after a time, keeping his voice low, "that I told you I was thinkin' about workin' for a place of my own?"

"Yes."

"Well, I don't like the idea so much anymore. I'm goin' to move on."

"Oh, please don't!"

He went on as if he had not heard. "I always hoped that I'd find me someone, and I thought I did, for a few days, anyhow – but now I'm alone again. It's pretty alone on the drift, too, but there I'm used to it."

"Can't you stay here, with the Matthews'? They've been good friends to you."

"I don't seem to have no heart for it now." He looked at me and I flinched at his bleak expression.

At the express office the Colonel went to see to our trunks, and Harper escorted me to the stage that would take us north to the railroad.

"I wanted to give you a present," he said, sitting down beside me, "but I didn't know if you'd let me."

"You can give me one thing," I laid my hand on his arm. "Don't leave Santa Fe. You are a fine and decent man, and life will bring you what you hope for, someday."

"I got somethin' to ask you," he continued, paying no attention, "and you have to answer me – I have to know. If we would've met long ago, before you knew your husband, do you think you might've loved me then?"

The pain in his eyes made me wish that I could lie.

"No," I told him, as gently as I could. "I know there is a woman somewhere who will love you, as you deserve to be loved; but I am not that woman, and never could be."

He turned his face away. "I guess I should thank you for bein' honest."

Other passengers began arriving and with them, the Colonel.

"Well, good-bye." Harper held out his hand.

"Good-bye," I said. "Please—don't go on the drift again. I'm so afraid for you—"

"Oh," he assured me, "don't you worry about me. At least the drift is a good place for forgettin'." He jumped out, and stood on the platform, his hands tucked into his gunbelt, watching as we pulled away.

"Well, Diana," asked the Colonel, settling himself across from me, "did you ever find your Western type?"

"I don't know about types," I answered slowly. "But I have learned that men's hearts are much the same, wherever they are."

"Gracious me! You haven't been meddling with hearts, have you?" the Colonel said, facetiously. "I'll have to tell Chris on you."

"I'll tell Chris myself. He'll understand—and I think he'll feel quite as awful as I do about it."

The Colonel raised his eyebrows. "The young man that just saw us off—was he one of the hearts?"

"He was," I said, sadly. Pulling my veil down to hide my face, I let the tears fall for Jess Harper. Someday, I hoped, he would forget; but it would be long time before I would, or before I could forgive myself for sending him back to the darkness and the drift.


End file.
